Crowdsourcing the "New Blogger"

Our chance to influence what Blogger is like

Did you get what you wanted this year?

I didn't, but check out the new user interface at blogger.com, now under development.

Now is our chance to influence the user interface we will be using for years to come.

What's at Stake

What are "fresh pages that work well on mobile?" The "pages" are the pages of your dashboard—the back end of Blogger at www.blogger.com.

Here, blog admins and authors can create, publish, and edit posts and pages. We can change blog themes, colors, and typography, see web statistics, and set other preferences related to access, advertising, and more.

"Work well on mobile" refers to a responsive design, so that you can access these controls from your phone. Blogger introduced some responsive blog themes in 2017.

Here's what does not seem to be part of this redesign: new features, such as undo and undelete, or any of the other improvements that I wished for last year.

Half a loaf is still better than none. But do we like the new interface?

That is what the Blogger team wants to know.

Work in progress

Want to try it out? Want to help? 

Blogger is asking for user feedback. Furthermore, they are listening to it.

To see the new dashboard pages, click the orange button at lower left and follow the prompts.

You'll be transported to the new Stats page, where the change is the greatest so far.

You can also see (as of this writing) the draft responsive versions of Posts, Comments, Pages, Layout, and Reading List.

To go back to the "old" Blogger (which is still the official user interface!) just click "Back to Classic Blogger" at lower left.

Note well: At some point, the new design will become the default, with an option to keep using the old Blogger for a while. Eventually that option will end.

We all have a stake in Blogger getting this right!

Tell Blogger what you think

Trying to use the New Blogger is (a) different, (b) frustrating, (c) interesting, (d) all of the above.  But this design is not final, and you can tell Blogger what they are getting wrong.

Blogger Peggy K has a review of the new interface as of December 19. It's a nice guide to use as you kick the tires yourself.

The very latest version of the new UI is at Blogger in draft (draft.blogger.com). Try "the new Blogger" from there for the most up-to-date experience

To influence the new design, "leave feedback" from your dashboard. The option is under "Help & Feedback" at lower left.

Update: As part of the ongoing redesign, "leave feedback" in "the new Blogger" has been moved under a compact "help" icon (question mark in a gray circle) at upper right.

This change was made to work in mobile view.

Below, a description of how to "leave feedback" in regular old classic blogger.

Clicking "Help & Feedback" will bring up the help menu. Feedback is at the bottom.

You won't get any feedback on your feedback—it's a one-way street. But I have seen the interface change before my eyes in response to feedback.

Now's your chance!

Try forcing yourself to use the new interface the next time you work on your blog. What makes you balk?

When you get to something that makes you switch back to "classic," a missing feature or a buggy behavior, do it—but leave feedback about the issue first.

I admit, I was hoping for other things in 2019. Maybe we'll get some of them in 2020. Hey, how about easy tables in the blogger editor?

Best wishes to my readers for the new year!